We’re working to make cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk as
accessible as possible for visitors regardless of their ability,
disability or general awareness of using the internet.
It is our aim to create a public sector site that stands out as
an excellent site to visit – not just an excellent public sector
site. The standard of service and design you expect shouldn’t
be any less, simply because we’re a local council and that’s
something we feel strongly about.
The problem with trying to make a fully ‘inclusive site’ is that
no single solution meets the needs of all users – and we’ve found
that sometimes trying to improve the site for one particular
disability can have an effect on our ability to meet the needs of
another section of our audience. So while we do work to achieve
all World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C) Web Content
Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Version 2.0
'Double A' standard as a minimum, sometimes we may not
have got quite there on some pages.
We also try as much as possible to allow you to 'optimise your
user experience' - put simply, let you view and use the Cheshire
West and Chester website the way you want to - not the way we make
you.
Useful Resources
The following web sites provide further accessibility
information for your web browser:
Help with Downloads
This website sometimes uses files that your computer may need an
extra programme, or piece of software, to open.
In most cases this software, such as Adobe Reader, is already
supplied with new computers.
We only use document formats that can be opened using a free
reader that you can download by following the links on this
page.
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Many of the files held on this website are in Adobe PDF format,
which means you'll need special software to view them. This
software is available to download free of charge from this
page.
The Adobe Acrobat Reader allows you to view, navigate, and print
PDF files across all major computing platforms. PDF stands for
Portable Document Format and means a document that can be viewed or
printed out on any platform, whether Windows, Macintosh or
Linux.
To download Adobe Acrobat Reader, click on the link below, which
will open a new window on the Adobe website:
PDF files and accessibility
We try to ensure that the information in the PDF content is
made accessible to all our users by enriching it with PDF
tags. This means the PDF documents can be easily read by
screen readers. However, in rare cases it is impossible to
make PDF documents as accessible as we would like, for example in
the case of PDF's containing maps and other diagrams.
Image-based PDF Documents
Where PDF documents are imaged based, for example maps, planning
applications etc, it is impossible to make the document fully
accessible. In those instances we will try as best we can to
offer an alternative solution, although this may not always be
possible.
Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint Viewers
Some documents on this website were produced in Microsoft
packages such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint. There's no need to buy
the software as a free viewer is available from the Microsoft
website. To download your free copy, click on the links below:
Help with hearing the website
ReadSpeaker ProReader is a web service that reads the text
content on a web site out aloud.
On the Settings page you can choose how you want it to work.
You can have the text that is read displayed in the window,
select text size, colour and make other changes on how the text is
shown.
It is also possible to make ProReader highlight the text as it
reads on a word by word basis, sentence by sentence basis or both.
Support for JavaScript must be switched on for the highlighting
function to work.
Using proReader
ProReader will load automatically when you click on Listen to
this site in the right hand menu and will start to read the webpage
you are on.
You can control the player with your keyboard using the space
bar to toggle between pause/play and the Escape-key to stop.
You can stop and pause ProReader at any time, as well as later
the volume an, if you prefer, you can click on the 'save mp3'
option to save an mp3 version of the page to your computer to
listen to when you like.
If you would like to alter
the ProReader settings, simply click on the 'Settings' tab and
change the speed, highlighting, font size or text appearance to
suit your own preference.
